Editing Cyrano de Bergerac (section)

=== Sources ===

Cyrano's short life is poorly documented. Certain significant chapters of his life are known only from the Preface to the ''Histoire Comique par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, Contenant les Estats & Empires de la Lune'' (''[[Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon]]'') published in 1657, nearly two years after his death.<ref name=Cyrano1657>{{Harvnb|Cyrano de Bergerac|1657|ref=Cyrano1657}}</ref> Without Henri Le Bret, who wrote the biographical information, his country childhood, his military engagement, the injuries it caused, his prowess as a swordsman, the circumstances of his death and his supposed final conversion would remain unknown.

Since 1862, when [[Auguste Jal]] revealed that the "Lord of Bergerac" was Parisian and not Gascon, research in parish registries and notarial records by a small number of researchers,<ref>{{harvnb|Brun|1893|ref=Brun1893}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Brun|1909|ref=Brun1909}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Roman|1894|pp=451–455|ref=Roman1894}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Coubertin|1898|pp=427–437|ref=Coubertin1898}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Poli|1898|pp=51–132|ref=Poli1898}}</ref><ref name=Lemoine1911>{{harvnb|Lemoine|1911|pp=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k17519n/f277.image.langFR 273–296]|ref=Lemoine1911}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Lemoine|1913|p=1|ref=Lemoine1913}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Lachèvre|1921|loc=volume I|ref=Lachevre1921I}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Samaran|1910|p=3|ref=Samaran1910}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Prévot|1977|ref=Prevot1977}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Prévot|1978|ref=Prevot1978}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Delaplace|1994|ref=Delaplace1994}}</ref> in particular Madeleine Alcover of [[Rice University]], has allowed the public to know more about his genealogy, his family, his home in Paris and those of some of his friends, but has revealed no new documents that support or refute the essentials of Le Bret's account or fill the gaps in his narrative.<ref group="note">Consider what Madeleine Alcover has written in the ''[[#Cyrano2004|« Biographie » de Cyrano de Bergerac]]''<!-- {{harvnb|loc=« Biographie » de Cyrano de Bergerac|ref=Cyrano2004}} -->: "It was necessary to renounce a kind of writing where the author presents to the readers as 'facts' purely subjective assertions; that kind of writing, known in [[Narratology]] as characteristic of the infallible and omniscient narrator, is totally misplaced in a biography. The readers must always be able to distinguish the content of a document from the interpretation that is made of it; the lack of documentation from a hypothesis (more or less well founded…)"</ref>